Hauntings of Claverton Castle, Chapter 8
The eighth chapter posts on the eighth day of the month. Maybe that’s auspicious.
Or maybe it’s just coincidence. Yeah, that’s more likely.
Samantha awakes from a nightmare… at Claverton Castle.
The book’s beginning:
Chapter 7:
https://open.substack.com/pub/whimsicalwords/p/hauntings-of-claverton-castle-chapter-682?r=5m2is&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Hauntings of Claverton Castle, Chapter 8
Samantha was back in Uncle Bradford’s drawing room. He was chasing her across the room and yelling, as he had the previous evening. He was inches away from her. She attempted to run across the drawing room, toward the door, but her feet felt as though she were plodding through deep sand.
Her uncle’s breath was hot against the back of her neck. The door seemed increasingly more distant as she attempted to reach it and tried in vain to speed up. She felt her uncle grab her by the elbow with an iron grip. She could no longer move at all. His other hand gripped her waist and pressed the stiff corset boning into her skin.
Samantha awoke with a scream. Sitting up, she blinked and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and looked around. Her heart was still pounding wildly. The bed curtains were closed around her, though she recalled leaving them open.
Samantha blinked and widened her eyes, fully realizing it had been merely a dream. A wave of relief swept over her, and she wiped her damp forehead with the back of her hand; she was safe from her uncle. She tentatively reached up to where her eye had been swollen; her fingers met slick ointment but no pain or swelling. Sitting up, she discovered that she no longer felt covered in bruises.
She pulled a curtain away before hastily climbing out of the bed; she felt impatient to know the time and to proceed with the day. Sunlight streamed through the windows. She looked around the room for a clock and found one on the mantel shelf; it was past five in the evening. Samantha exhaled. At least I slept restfully before the nightmare.
She approached a basin and pitcher in a corner and washed up, darkening the water with salve. Recalling the goddess figure she had wrapped in handkerchiefs, Samantha scanned the room for her portmanteau. She sought it in vain until she entered the dressing-room and opened a wardrobe. Her clothing was hung up and pressed.
The portmanteau sat on the bottom of the wardrobe. She opened it and found the statue standing in the center of the bag. She gently, reverently, pulled it out, cradled in both hands. Carrying the statue, she scanned the room for a suitable altar before deciding she would prefer to place the statue in the bedroom, where she’d see the goddess upon waking.
In the bedroom, she came to a side table that displayed a vase with silk flowers and a small enamel box. She lifted the box, stroked its sleek sides, and moved it to the top of a wardrobe before she placed the goddess statue on the center of the table.
She gazed at the statue, admiring its intricate details. The figure was painted entirely gold. She sat cross-legged on a flower-like platform, and behind her radiated a circular pattern symbolic of sunrays. Her elbows were bent, and in the palms of her hands rested the planet Earth.
Samantha pressed her palms together and closed her eyes. Envisioning a real, living goddess standing before her, she chanted:
O mother goddess Anu
Mother of all the deities,
Shine brightly in the sky
And bring light into your people’s lives.
Please bring light into my life.
O great goddess, shine on me,
Nurture me, guard me from strife.
Help me grow like a rose
In your shining garden.
Samantha recollected her mother embracing her after she had fallen off her pony. She had been frightened and bruised, and her mother claimed it was a wonder she had no broken bones. That embrace had stopped her tears, and she’d closed her eyes and enjoyed the comfort of her mother’s arms and her faint scent of roses. Recalling this, Samantha gulped down a lump in her throat.
She closed her eyes and stepped away from the shrine with the knowledge that she must make do with a mother goddess in lieu of her real mother. Recalling her parents’ funeral in the grove behind Goblin Hall, Samantha reflected that she would never again have a real mother. She exhaled deeply and opened her eyes to gaze at the statue once more before turning away. She took a mental note to request candles for her new altar.
After dressing herself in a simple muslin frock, Samantha hid in her room reading more of The Mysteries of Udolpho before she dressed in an embroidered white muslin frock and left her bedroom. The sun was low on the horizon when she headed down the staircase and passed a window. She pictured Harriet’s father pointing to the door and tossing her portmanteau toward it. She shuddered and inquired of a servant the location of the manor house’s library.
She followed the maid and was delighted to discover her friend Harriet with a new gothic novel, Nightmare Grove by Thomas Love Peacock, on a window seat. Harriet jumped up and greeted Samantha in her characteristically gushing manner, complete with fluttering hands and exclamations on how well healed she looked. She followed Samantha toward a bookcase, where the latter perused with an index finger touching many books. She relished the bumpy texture of the embossed spines and the scent of books, old and new.
Harriet hovered, scanning titles. “Father has been hiking all day. But you will see him soon, at supper.”
“Is he quite the outdoorsman?” Samantha had pictured Mr. Prendregast as stout and rheumatic, like her uncle.
“Yes, definitely. La, if he is not hiking, he’s riding, or he’s trudging about his property and checking on his tenants.”
“I have quite a proclivity for the outdoors myself.”
“I expect we shall take plenty of walks together. How fortunate you enjoy the outdoors, since out here in the country you’d be positively bored to death otherwise.”
“Not with so many books. Is Reginald on this trek with Mr. Prendregast?” Samantha pictured Harriet’s handsome older brother. He was such a dandy, Samantha smiled slightly at the notion of mud smudging his Hessians.
“Yes, he went along. He typically does if he is not in town or otherwise engaged. His friends, other dandies, call often. You might meet some of them, though you wouldn’t think they’d like to come to a dark old place like this.”
“Not unless they enjoy gothic novels.” The girls both giggled at this. Samantha raised her eyebrows and mentally noted how Harriet had mentioned first only her father, not her father and Reginald.
Harriet looked up from a book. “If they did, I would get along better with Reginald’s friends.”
“Undoubtedly.”
“La, they would be disinclined to avoid me.”
“Do Reginald’s companions customarily avoid your society?”
“Oh dear me, yes!” Harriet clenched her jaw.
Samantha wondered if Samantha admired any of Reginald’s aloof friends from afar. “I think I should like having a brother.”
“I think I should like having a sister!” Harriet giggled.
Pulling a book off a shelf, Samantha recalled Harriet teasing her about marrying Reginald. He seemed pleasant enough, but she considered her misgivings about marriage. A lifetime came across as a great length of time to devote to one individual.
Samantha pulled off the shelf Patronage—something she’d appreciate as an aspiring composer and musician—a novel by Maria Edgeworth, though she hadn’t finished reading The Mysteries of Udolpho. The latter was lengthy, but she read at a fast pace. “No doubt Reginald is enough to draw his friends to this amazing old house. I really do like the place. Or perhaps your brother’s style is all it takes to attract visitors.”
Harriet chortled. “Oh, la, Samantha, I do declare you can be as droll as Reginald himself!”
“I can’t think your brother would tramp about in the woods and fields in a fuchsia waistcoat. What does he wear on these outings with your father?”
“Much more sober stuff, I assure you! But he does receive glares from our father when old ‘paterfamilias,’ as Reginald calls him, sees him dressed up to the nines. Father has no inkling what’s fashionable. Admittedly, Reginald tends to set fashions himself, fashions nobody else follows. You should have seen him with pink hair! La, that did give our father a fright! It took over a month to get it out, too.”
As Samantha anticipated, when Harriet and she stepped into the dining room, Mr. Prendregast occupied the head of the table, with a stiff butler standing behind him. He glared at his son. Two Border collies, both somewhat shaggy black and white dogs with mild brown eyes, lay at his feet and lifted their heads at Samantha’s entrance. However, they refrained from barking at her. One of them repeatedly rapped the hardwood floor with a wagging tail.
Reginald sat to his father’s right. Samantha repressed a grin at sight of his cranberry-colored satin frockcoat and pale blue waistcoat.
The gentlemen both rose, and the young ladies entered the room and curtseyed. With four individuals at the table, Samantha felt glad they occupied this room, the original solar, rather than the presumably enormous and medieval grand hall.